Performing multiple tests on a material, a single test on multiple materials or multiple tests on multiple materials may be a time consuming and labor intensive process. For example, in a screening test where an indicator is used to detect the presence of a particular substance in a variety of materials, the indicator must be added to each of the materials and the results must be individually observed.
In some cases, the process of performing multiple tests may be performed in a tray containing multiple wells (multi-well plate). For example, each well may be filled with an indicator and test material may be added to each well. Such an arrangement may facilitate observation of results and processing, such as incubation, required to achieve the results. However, filling each well individually remains time consuming and, as the number of materials to be tested and number of tests increase, the number of wells required to do all of the tests increases geometrically. A system capable of reducing the amount of time and labor required to perform multiple tests is desirable. A small and simple system is particularly desirable.
Microfluidic systems have received attention recently as creating the possibility of fabricating compact, integrated devices for analytical functions such as sensing, diagnosis and genomic analysis. Microfluidic systems are flow systems miniaturized to dimensions typically as small as a few micrometers (μm). Such systems present challenges in both their design and manufacture. For example, at the level of miniaturization of typical microfluidic systems, fluid flow is predominantly laminar and the effects of diffusion, surface tension and viscosity may be emphasized.